What to Do When You Realize Your Mom Isn't Perfect

In an age when so many women call their moms their BFFs, Mother's Day can feel fraught if you have a rocky relationship with yours. Here, three women open up about their complicated bonds with the most important woman in their lives.

When I was a little girl growing up in Detroit, my mom worked long hours so I didn't get to see her much, but I adored her. Everyone on my street would say, "Your mom is so pretty," and I was proud of the way she dressed and made sure her hair was perfectly curled. My dad watched me and my two siblings, but when he died when I was 8, my mom started to unravel. I was crushed when she would hit us or pick fights for no reason.

My dad's mom, who had started taking care of us, blamed her behavior on drugs. "When she's like that, just don't pay her any attention," she told me. Around that time, my mother would disappear for days. I didn't fully understand what was going on until I was 10 and spotted her standing in a group on a corner in my Detroit neighborhood that was known for drugs and prostitution. My jaw dropped, and I started to cry as I thought, Oh no! She's one of them now. It was such a shock.

For the next few years, she would show up every month or so for short visits. Even though my grandmother loved us as best she could, it was hard growing up without a mom. I was lonely and wanted a mother to take me shopping for prom dresses or talk to me about boys. Once when I was 16, I learned she was in rehab and tried to see her. I was devastated when the lady at the front desk said she didn't want any visitors. The sting from my mother's rejecting me was the worst feeling I have ever experienced.

In the meantime, I tried to focus on developing a career as an electric soul singer, and writing songs became a way to work through my feelings. I made a decision that I would follow my dreams and not let my past make me a bitter person and drag me down.

I've since moved to Atlanta, but on a trip to Detroit for a show three years ago, I got a taste of my mother's love that I've longed for my entire life. She came to my performance and said, "Vina, you were amazing! I'm so proud of you." When she started singing some of my lyrics, my eyes welled up. It felt incredible knowing I had made my mother happy.

I haven't seen my mother since, but I still call her every few months and try not to get my feelings hurt if she rushes me off the phone. What helps me is trying to understand her demons. I don't think anyone chooses to abandon her kids. I think she was insecure and sought approval from the wrong people and just got addicted to cocaine. I pray for her and try to find a soft place in my heart that lets me forgive her. I also tell myself that I went through this so I could touch other people with my music. My experience with my mother made me stronger so I can help others be stronger too.

On Thanksgiving when I was 11, my three sisters and I joined my parents and grandparents at the table for pumpkin pie. Before we did, I overheard the adults quietly saying that my mother's anorexia was flaring up again. I had read about anorexia before, but I never knew my mom struggled with it.

At five feet two, my mom is naturally petite. But in the two years that followed that night, she began to look scarily thin. She started working out every day, and her already size-0 clothes would be falling off her body. She replaced meals with nutrition bars and would fill up on baby carrots before dinner so she didn't have to eat with us. The changes weren't just physical; she had completely checked out mentally. A dull stare replaced the twinkle in her eye that I had always loved. I rarely saw her smile anymore.

It was obvious to everyone that something was seriously wrong, but it wasn't obvious just how bad things were until I found her diary when I was 14. I knew I shouldn't have read it, but I did, and written on the pages were her darkest thoughts — she was suffering a deep depression and was thinking of harming herself. I ran to show my 15-year-old sister, normally the levelheaded counterpart to my roller coaster of emotions. She read the first few words and burst into tears. We called my mom's therapist in a panic, unsure if our mother was going to try to take her own life.

At this point, my mom's anorexia had spiraled completely out of control. Her body was starting to shut down, and her doctors warned her that if she didn't get immediate treatment, her heart would stop. So as I entered eighth grade, my mom checked into an inpatient eating-disorder treatment center. In the five months she was gone, I spiraled into my own depression. I came home and took three-hour naps before sleeping 10 more hours each night. I started self-harming, and my self-esteem plummeted. My mom always told me and my sisters that we were beautiful, trying not to let her disease affect our self-image. But I still wondered: If my mom thought of herself as fat at a size 0, how did she really see me, a size 12?

Even after my mom came home, she continued to struggle, and so did I. In high school, I worried about her constantly, always scared she'd go away again. As I watched her avoid meals, I ate more to compensate. I started hating my body, looking at myself in the mirror and imagining where a plastic surgeon would draw incision lines for a tummy tuck and lipo. I ordered diet pills from an infomercial, desperate to lose weight. When my parents began going through a messy divorce, I turned to food to cope and hated myself for it.

The fall of my freshman year in college, all my fears were realized as my mom went back into treatment. I felt helpless and alone, falling back into my depression. But it was my mom who refused to let me drop out of a prestigious university and move home. It was she who told me that my only chance at a happy life was to start focusing on myself. I made an effort to redirect all my negative thoughts about my weight into things that actually made me happy. I threw myself into my schoolwork and internships and spent my junior year abroad in Paris. I began to make a future for myself — a healthy one.

My mom is doing better now. She has gained some weight but will always struggle with her body image. And yes, I still have issues too, but I don't resent or blame my mom. I know her anorexia has affected me (and I do worry about passing on my own issues to my future kids), but I think it has also helped make me stronger. I'm working on having a healthy relationship with food and trying to love my body, and my friends and I have a strict no-fat-talk rule. My past may have included unhealthy attitudes about my body, but I'm working hard to make sure my future doesn't.

My friends think my mom's wild-child antics — doing shots, making out with my sister's friends, telling raunchy sex jokes — are hilarious. But they make me cringe. How am I supposed to respond to texts saying, "We were out and saw your mom riding a mechanical bull!"? Even though my mom is 57, she's still 17 at heart.

Her refusal to be a grown-up hasn't always been easy for me. Sometimes, I think it's a miracle I'm alive. My dad wasn't in the picture and my older sisters were out of the house, so it was mostly my mom and me when I was growing up. Once during a vacation to Mexico when I was 15, she paid a random local guy to watch me and my friend while she danced inside the cages at a sketchy bar. During middle and high school, she never gave me a curfew, and my friends' parents were baffled that I could stay out all night or have friends sleep over during the week. I'd brag that I had the cool mom, but I was jealous of the structure my friends had. I didn't always like being in charge of myself, and I wanted my mom looking out for me.

I don't think my mom has a clue just how much she embarrasses me, even though I've told her how I feel about her antics. Once when my friend posted a picture of the novel A Good Man Is Hard to Find on Facebook, my mom replied, "A hard man is good to find!" That was humiliating enough, but it really upset me when she insisted on wishing my ex a happy birthday on his wall. When I told her she was being disloyal, she said, "You're not the boss of my social media. He and I are still friends."

I've accepted that she's never going to change, and I try not to be mad. She's a good person; she just doesn't have any filter. But sometimes my having to be the adult causes friction. She gets her feelings hurt when I won't do tequila shots with her and accuses me of being judgmental. Then I feel guilty and sad that we're not closer.

People who know my mom tell me I'm an apple from a different orchard, which I guess isn't a bad thing. I've had to learn to be responsible at a young age. I'm also proud that I've been completely self-sufficient since college because she couldn't help me financially. (She's remarried now, and I feel lucky that I don't have to worry about her around the clock.) Still, it annoys me when my friends say, "Your mom is more fun than you are." It's easy for them to say because she's not their mom. She's mine and she's not perfect, but I will always love her anyway.

–As told to Sarah Elizabeth Richards*Name has been changed.

Forgiving an Imperfect MomWhen someone hurts you — especially someone who was supposed to protect you, like a mom — forgiving can feel like admitting that what she did was OK. But it's not. Forgiveness doesn't even have to include making up — it can be something you do to free yourself from bad energy and heal. When you forgive, you feel less angry, anxious, and depressed, maybe because you're no longer passively accepting what a person did to wrong you. If you're ready to forgive, start here.

1. First, let yourself be pissed or sad or whatever you feel about what happened. Feel all the feelings, then make the choice to move forward.

2. This is the hardest part: Try to think about what happened in that person's life that caused her to act the way she did. For example, if your mom didn't take care of you or drank too much, maybe her parents did the same to her and she didn't know how to do any better. You're not making excuses for her. You're just trying to see all sides of the story.

3. Let go of the bad feelings, and, if possible, do something nice for the person, even if it's just liking an Instagram pic or smiling at her. It would be great if she apologizes, but even if she doesn't, it doesn't matter. You're doing this for you.

4. Finally, think about whether there's some bigger lesson in your pain. Maybe it's knowing how to help someone else or using your pain in your art. Try to see this as something that has made you stronger, because that's exactly what it is.

Source: Robert Enright, professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love.

This article was originally published as "When Your Mom's Not Perfect" in the May 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan. Click here to get the issue in the iTunes store!